Marked for Daniil Dementjev
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Apr 2027
32 days out for Amir Fattakhov after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Znamya Truda will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Match19 Apr 2027
Znamya Truda refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 50 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Squad19 Apr 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Znamya Truda this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Znamya Truda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandr Stavpets is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Artem Terentjev, and the manager let it.
Market19 Apr 2027
The Evgeny Morev talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Znamya Truda know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market8 Mar 2027
The bid was some way short and Lokomotiv Moscow did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets8 Mar 2027
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Lokomotiv Moscow will try again when the window opens; Zenit may not be selling by then.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Sergey Pinyaev and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets8 Mar 2027
CSKA Moscow wanted more than $88.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Zelimkhan Bakaev falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Loan watch8 Mar 2027
“I did not go to Rotor to sit and watch. I want to come back to Lokomotiv Moscow and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
Loan watch8 Mar 2027
“I am playing every week here and I feel like a footballer again.” 30 appearances and 2 goals on loan, and a decision waiting in the summer.
Squad8 Mar 2027
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Lokomotiv Moscow would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Marked 7.78 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.32 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match19 Dec 2026
Znamya Truda make home a hard place to visit
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Alexandr Stavpets and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Match19 Dec 2026
It finished 2‑1, and it was Daniel Yegorov’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Znamya Truda.
The terraces21 Dec 2026
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Alexey Naidenov
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
the manager has his say
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” the manager on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 33. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Alexandr Stavpets was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match14 Nov 2026
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Znamya Truda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dmitry Tashov is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match16 Nov 2026
Half the programme played, position 4, 28 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Nikita Lebedev
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Znamya Truda are still strangers to each other
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 15 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
the manager on the point
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” the manager after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad24 Aug 2026
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Amir Fattakhov: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with Torpedo Vladimir, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The offer went to KDV Tomsk this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Znamya Truda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexey Naidenov is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Lokomotiv Moscow have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” the manager was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Znamya Truda dressing room was either.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.